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after may be able to assist him and——The narrator paused, and said, with a marked emphasis, " and one who, though a priest, still considers himself a Capelmonte, and bound to revenge the wrongs of his race."

Sir Philip glanced at the face of his companion. The subdued somewhat stolid look of the ecclesiastic had vanished, and there was a proud hearing and a flash in the eye which showed that the old brigand blood yet boiled beneath the serge.

CHAPTER V.

Ir was shortly after this conversation that Sir Philip had gone to Amalfi. Since his arrival he had kept mostly to his apartments in the hotel, and had excited the curiosity and interest of the landlord by his settled melancholy and the care with which he shunned all intercourse. At night, too, he had often been heard walking for hours in his bed-room, and the landlord doubted whether he slept at all. The opinion of the landlord and his wife was that their guest was not altogether in his proper senses-a conclusion in which the friends of the landlord concurred, when they learned that the Englishman had taken for himself alone the whole of the little hotel.

Lord Grahame Falconer was informed by the landlord that his guest had given strict orders he should see no one. But his lordship was not to be denied; and a Napoleon quietly introduced into the landlord's hands, coupled with an assurance that he was sure Sir Philip would be glad to see him, and with a positive assertion that he was determined to get in, overcame his scruples.

His lordship entered the room where Sir Philip was sitting, unannounced. He was more taken by surprise than Sir Philip, so much was he struck with the change in his appearance.

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"What the devil have you been about?" was the first salutation of his lordship. "Have you had fever, or what has happened?" Nothing whatever," said Sir Philip, coming forward with his usual gentlemanly manner and shaking hands with his friend"nothing whatever; only I am somewhat knocked-up with the heat, and I have not been very well. I am glad, very glad, to see you."

Lord Grahame had his doubts of the sincerity of this statement. To judge from Sir Philip's expression of face, his sentiments might be supposed the reverse; but this was only at first. The strong control Sir Philip exercised over his emotions soon banished every trace of annoyance.

Lord Grahame began his attack upon Sir Philip by explaining to him the state of parties, and the career which was open to him if he liked to avail himself of it. He found Sir Philip quite disposed to his projects. "I will do anything," he said, "which will distract

my attention, and I will try again whether the game of politics can have that effect. It answered well at one time of my life, and, believe me, my lord, I need it now."

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May I be your confidant?" said his lordship; "perhaps I could assist you; at all events, I would not betray. There is some heavy secret on your heart. I am an old man, but I have always Is it the old sorrow again, my friend? I often thought you never entirely got over it; but I thought time was gradually healing the wound.”

taken an interest in you.

"You have a right," said Sir Philip, "if any one has, to my confidence; but, believe me, what I have. recently suffered cannot be assuaged by any sympathy. I will bear it better alone. I must so bear it to the end of my days. Let us not speak of it or the past. Let us look only to the future. I accept the proposition you have made me. I will return to England and if an exclusive devotion to public life can secure me the confidence of our party they may rely, at least, on that: for henceforth I have no other life. I will return with you when you please, to-morrow, if it suits you."

"It will be time enough in a day or two," said Lord Grahame ; "we will, at any rate, leave this hotel to-morrow; and if you will allow me to direct your steps, we will go to Paris. It is a better place for getting rid of evil thoughts than here."

The two friends accordingly went to Paris; but Sir Philip was not more at peace there than in Amalfi. The amusements of Paris, as they are called, were to him only so many sources of fatigue and ennui; and, indeed, sorrows which we cannot forget, and which have their root in our own evil passions, become more poignant amid scenes which, to a mind untainted by remorse and unembarrassed by anxiety, excite laughter, or gratify curiosity. For the pleasure or interest displayed by others, only reveals more clearly to the victim of remorse, and unavailing regret his isolation, and adds to his sufferings the painful effort which even the proudest insensibly makes to hide his feelings from others, and to make believe that he sympathises with the rest. Ah! in such scenes full many a laugh which, to those fresh and young hearts which are really interested in what is going on, appears natural and in harmony with their own thoughts, is detected by those who have gone through the experience of misfortune or folly-that is to say, by the majority-by a certain falsity in its key, to be an index to feelings and thoughts, which, if expressed in language sufficiently graphic, would arrest the smile on the lips of the most careless and most innocent of the audience. There is an attraction in real sorrow which compels attention. Its force consists in this-that the man possessed by a great sorrow belongs to another world of thought; and when it is discovered that such is the case,

people turn round to gaze at this traveller from a far country, who has brought with him the very air of the desert.

Lord Grahame could not understand Sir Philip. Pretty well accustomed to the genus blasé, there was something in the way in which his friend met all the variety of Parisian life which surpassed every indifferentism he had yet seen; and when he hinted his surprise at this listlessness, there was a weary smile came over Sir Philip's face, and a brief attempt to appear amused or interested, which depressed even the triply-polished Epicurianism of his lordship. Obviously the simple distraction of the flaneur-generally the most potent dissipator of disagreeable thoughts in a town like Paris, or rather in Paris, for there is no town like it-would not do. Lord Grahame tried other means. But Sir Philip had lost all interest in gaming. It seemed to be nothing to him whether he gained or lost, and as for intrigue, Lord Grahame was too old; and Sir Philip was so cold, so silent, and so indifferent that a younger cicerone would have failed to lead him into temptation.

Sir Philip was unamuseable and Lord Grahame was bored.

"This will never do!" said his lordship. "You will be floating down the Seine or exposed in the Morgue, if we don't get out of this. Let us go to London-business is what you require. After all, ambition is the best antidote. it is that weighs so on your spirits. and if I can help you know I will; must cheer up."

I don't ask, Sir Philip, what You may tell me, if you like, but, one way or another, you

"My dear fellow," said Sir Philip, with almost a successful attempt at gaiety, "what tragic notion is this you have taken into your head? There is nothing the matter with me at all. My money matters you know are all right, and I have a career before me. What more can I ask? Do you wonder that I am no longer a boy, and feel no zest for the dissipations of Paris,—that I can't laugh at their stupid vaudevilles nor be interested in their miles of pictures?"

"I don't see why you should not as well as I," said his lordship, "who might be your father. I still can laugh, thank God, and still appreciate a picture. I still like a dinner at the Maison Dore, and, above all, it is a pleasant sight in this miserable world-the Boulevard Italian. I can't understand a man being unhappy among the men we meet there, some of whom think they will never die. I, for one, can't help catching their spirit. Unless one has turned revivalist; unless one has killed one's father or brother; forged a bill which is stopped at the Bank; lamed one's favourite hunter; tired of one's favourite mistress, who will not take the hint; or any other of those tragic ills that flesh is heir to,—so long as I have a good conscience-I mean, so long as

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I keep on the windy side of the lane, and have given no excuse to ghosts to disturb my waking or sleeping dreams, and so long as I am in good health,---I can't, for the lite of me, see why aman can help being amused in Paris. If I had the direction of an asylum of melancholy madmen, I would engage to cure them, if the gendarmes would allow me to parade them, in straight jackets, of course, and becomingly fettered, up and down the Italian of an evening."

"Well," said Sir Philip, "I fear I am one of the incurables; for I confess the most insiped sight of all the insipid sights of Paris is these same Boulevards filled evening after evening by people who find felicity in eau sucré, ices, and lemonade. I am sick of the whole affair, I confess. Allons! let us to England. There you come in contact with real interests and real passion; and the opposition of men in dead earnest fighting for their lives-that is to say, for their interests will perhaps elict a sparkle or two in the smouldering heap of ashes which, to speak à la tragique, at present covers up the volcano of my heart."

And again Sir Philip laughed gaily.

Next morning they left for London.

SCOTT'S FEMALE CHARACTERS.

BY DR. ALFRED J. H. CRESPI.

THE deep-rooted and pardonable prejudice, which the licentious novels of the last, and of the preceding, century excited against works of fiction, is rapidly dying away.

If it lingers at all, it is confined to narrow-minded circles, into which broader and moreenlightened views have not succeeding in penetrating.

To the narrative form of literature, as such, no reasonable objection can possibly be made. Nor is fiction itself recessarily objectionable. The accurate and learned historian is most readable and instructive, when he thoroughly throws himself into the spirit of his subject, and describes, pleasantly and vividly, the actions of the real persons the story of whose eventful lives he is narrating. He is most successful, when he enables his reader to discover for himself, from the actions and events he is describing, the motives and circumstances which led to these events. The historical novelist, on his side, is most deserving of praise, when he contrives to give life and substance to the shadowy persons and deeds which uncertain tradition has handed down, and compels the reader to sympathise with, and for his heroes and heroines.

A well-written and successful history, ostensibly confining itself to what has actually taken place, must, therefore, produce on the mind of the reader much the same effect as that at which the novelist aims. There are, however, certain marked differences between these two forms of literature. The graphic and learned historian is closely bound down by facts, which he dares not alter; he is not permitted to give his imagination any latitude, nor to introduce into his narrative purely fictitious personages, though by so doing he might greatly enhance the interest of his work. The novelist, on the other hand, has much more freedom, though after all, not as much as he is commonly credited with having, for he too must, above all things, make his characters act consistently and naturally. To reproduce nature faithfully is the greatest triumph of art; the endeavour to do so must keep the literary artist, whether historian or novelist, within the bounds of reason and propriety.

A novel may be defined to be the history of persons, generally fictitious, but whether real or fictitious so pourtrayed as to be true to the weaknesses and peculiarities of human character. A history on the other hand, is, or professes to be, an unvarnished account of

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